What PDF export settings should I tell my clients to use, so I can read in Illustrator?

Here's hoping someone has relatively bullet-proof settings for all those apps that can generate PDFs these days (assuming they even have settings). Obviously, if they're using Illustrator, tell them to enable "Preserve Illustrator editing capabilities" and you should be fine. (But then, if they're using Illustrator, just have them send an Illustrator file ;-) Otherwise I find it's pretty much a crap shoot as to what you're going to get. Especially with all the masks PDFs generate -- it can be pretty maddening at times.

I'd LOVE to know if there's a basic set of settings that will leave things relatively pristine =)

For the most part, my clients only need to see what a l/o looks like and if the copy is correct. Image quality and color fidelity, crispness of typography, etc. are not what they're vetting. So, for that matter, I could export at the "Smallest File Size" PDF preset, and it wouldn't matter. But I like to give them an artifact-free visual.

Natcherly, if a file is going to the printer, I export a .ps file and distill it as Press Quality with "Optimize for Web View" and OPI turned off.

That "cutting up" you're seeing is the transparency flattener at work. They need to set it to vector instead of raster, and they need to make sure that all colors are either RGB or CMYK, but not a mix of both. Then they need to make sure they save as a PDF version 7 or higher.

Even then, you're likely to have issues. At its core, PDF is meant for output, not import/further editing.

They need to set it to vector instead of raster, and they need to make sure that all colors are either RGB or CMYK, but not a mix of both. Then they need to make sure they save as a PDF version 7 or higher.

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